Ranchers who inspired Ore. occupation report to prison
BURNS, ORE. >> Father-and-son ranchers convicted of setting fire to federal grazing land reported to prison Monday as the armed anti-government activists who have taken up their cause maintained the occupation of a remote Oregon wildlife preserve.
Federal authorities made no immediate attempt to retake the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the remote high desert of eastern Oregon, which about two dozen activists seized over the weekend as part of a decades-long fight over public lands in the West.
There appeared to be no urgent reason for federal officials to move in. No one has been hurt. No one is being held hostage. And the refuge is a bleak and forbidding stretch of wilderness about 300 miles from Portland, and it’s the middle of winter.
Some have complained that the government’s response to the situation in Oregon would have been more severe had the occupants been Muslim or other minorities.
But others said from a tactical standpoint, the government’s cautious response would make sense no matter who was holed up in the government building in the reserve.
Meanwhile, the armed group said it wants an inquiry into whether the government is forcing ranchers off their land after the father and son were ordered back to prison for arson on federal grazing lands.
The group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom demanded a government response within five days related to the ranchers’ extended sentences.
Ammon Bundy — one of the sons of rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a 2014 Nevada standoff with the government over grazing rights — told reporters that Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven Hammond, were treated unfairly.
The Hammonds were convicted of arson three years ago for fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006, one of which was set to cover up deer poaching, according to prosecutors. They said they lit the fires to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires.